Tag: Jupiter

As I write, the winter solstice is just minutes away. It happens at 10:28 a.m. (Central Time) and marks the moment the sun reaches its lowest point in the sky. It’s been heading southward ever since the summer solstice on June 21st. You don’t notice at first, but it sneaks up on you so that… Read More

Using imagery from NASA’s Juno spacecraft, animators created this visualization of a flight into Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. The video begins about 2,000 miles (3,000 km) above the cloud tops of the planet’s southern hemisphere. Every school kid knows Jupiter has a big red spot. Called the Great Red Spot, it’s a titanic oval storm… Read More

Yesterday, we saw some amazing closeups of Jupiter’s crazy, stormy atmosphere. Very soon, we’ll be able to see the planet with our own eyes thanks to a brief fling with Venus at dawn. On Monday morning, Nov. 13, Venus and Jupiter will be just 0.3° apart or less than half a moon diameter. The eye-catching… Read More

NASA’s Juno probe took its 9th set of drool-worthy images during it most recent close flyby of Jupiter on Oct. 24. The spacecraft travels in a highly elongated orbit around Jupiter once every 53 days. For just two hours during that time, it loops in close to the planet’s polar regions to grab data and new… Read More

Dang, if the moon isn’t always up to something! Tonight, it’s a crescent and in conjunction with Jupiter and Spica low in the southwestern sky during evening twilight. Feel free to give a nod to our only natural satellite for the fine work it did on eclipse day. Earlier sunsets and a shorter twilight mean… Read More